ABSTRACT Title of Dissertation: CHARMERS, COMEDIANS
Total Page：16
File Type：pdf, Size：1020Kb
ABSTRACT Title of Dissertation: CHARMERS, COMEDIANS & CONQUERORS: OPERATIC REPERTOIRE FOR TENOR Patrick Michael Cook Doctor of Musical Arts, 2013 Dissertation directed by: Professor Gran Wilson, School of Music This performance dissertation consists of a performance component, program notes supporting the performances, annotated bibliography, and a discography. The performances explore five different roles for tenor ranging from the late 18th century to the contemporary period. The purpose of this dissertation is to determine how composers define different characters through various musical and physical characteristics in their compositions. The supporting document examines 18th, 19th, and 20th-century techniques employed by composers to develop characters both musically and theatrically. The first role performed is Luigi in Il tabarro (1918) by Giacomo Puccini (1858-1924) presented November 19-22, 2011. As part of the Art of Argento celebration, the roles of Man with Old Luggage in Postcard From Morocco (1971) and Bentley Drummle in Miss Havisham’s Fire (1996) by Dominick Argento (b.1927) are performed in repertory from April 20-29, 2012. The fourth role is Monostatos in Die Zauberflöte (1791) by Wolfgang Amadeus Mozart (1756-1791) performed November 16-20, 2012. The final role of this project is the title role in Mozart’s Idomeneo (1781) performed April 12-20, 2013. All operas are produced by the Maryland Opera Studio and presented in the Ina and Jack Kay Theatre in the Clarice Smith Performing Arts Center at the University of Maryland, College Park. Archival DVD and CD recordings are available in the University of Maryland library system. CHARMERS, COMEDIANS & CONQUERORS: OPERATIC REPERTOIRE FOR TENOR By Patrick Michael Cook Dissertation submitted to the Faculty of the Graduate School of the University of Maryland, College Park in partial fulfillment of the requirements for the degree of Doctor of Musical Arts 2013 Advisory Committee: Professor Gran Wilson, Chairman Professor Charles Rutherford, Dean’s Representative Professor Linda Mabbs Professor Timothy McReynolds Professor Delores Ziegler © Copyright by Patrick Michael Cook 2013 ii To my parents, Bruce and Deborah Cook iii Table of Contents Dedication………………………………………………………………………………...ii Table of Contents………………………………………………………………………....iii Chapter 1: Introduction……………………………………….……………………….1 Chapter 2: Puccini’s Il tabarro – Program Notes……………………….…………….2 Chapter 3: Argento’s Postcard from Morocco and Miss Havisham’s Fire – Program Notes………………………………………..…..………….……7 Chapter 4: Mozart’s Die Zauberflöte – Program Notes………………………..…….11 Chapter 5: Mozart’s Idomeneo – Program Notes………………………….………...15 Chapter 6: Conclusions…………………………………………….……….……..…20 Appendix A: DVD: Il tabarro Libretto by Giuseppe Adami; Music by Giacomo Puccini Conducted by Zachary Schwartzman; Directed by Leon Major Performed November 20, 2011 in the Ina and Jack Kay Theatre, Clarice Smith Performing Arts Center, University of Maryland Appendix B: DVD: Postcard From Morocco Text by John Donahue; Music by Dominick Argento Conducted by Michael Ingram; Directed by Pat Diamond Performed April 20, 2012 in the Ina and Jack Kay Theatre, Clarice Smith Performing Arts Center, University of Maryland Appendix C: DVD: Miss Havisham’s Fire Libretto (after Dickens) by John Olon-Scrymegeour; Music by Dominick Argento Conducted by Timothy Long; Directed by Leon Major Performed April 21, 2012 in the Ina and Jack Kay Theatre, Clarice Smith Performing Arts Center, University of Maryland Appendix D: DVD: Die Zauberflöte Libretto by Emanuel Schikaneder; Music by Wolfgang Amadeus Mozart Conducted by Robert Wood; Directed by Nick Olcott Performed November 16, 2012 in the Ina and Jack Kay Theatre, Clarice Smith Performing Arts Center, University of Maryland Appendix E: DVD: Idomeneo Libretto by Giambattista Varesco; Music by Wolfgang Amadeus Mozart Conducted by Joseph Gascho; Directed by Pat Diamond Performed April 12, 2013 in the Ina and Jack Kay Theatre, Clarice Smith Performing Arts Center, University of Maryland Bibliography……………………………………………………………....………..……26 Discography……………………………………………………………………………...30 1 Chapter 1: Introduction The following document is the written component supporting the doctoral dissertation performance project titled “Charmers, Comedians & Conquerors: Operatic Repertoire for Tenor.” The performances explore five different tenor roles in five operas by three separate composers performed with the Maryland Opera Studio at the University of Maryland, College Park. To accompany the archival DVD recordings of the performances, scholarly program notes aimed to educate and guide the viewer during the exploration of this project are included. Original printed program booklets from the live performance events can be found at the end of this portfolio. The annotated bibliography lists source materials and additional references used during the research and compilation of this document. 2 Chapter 2: Puccini’s Il tabarro Giacomo Puccini (1858-1924) was one of the last great composers in the expansive history of Italian opera. Born into an extensive musical family in Lucca, Italy, the young Puccini received a thorough musical education and, as a young man, continued in the family tradition of playing the organ. Today, Puccini is remembered as one of the most popular and significant Italian opera composers and his operas remain some of the most performed in the entire repertory. La bohème (1896), Tosca (1900), and Madama Butterfly (1904) established Puccini as an important operatic composer on the international scene and paved the way for a number of important collaborations and projects, such as La fanciulla del West (1910), the first world premiere presented by the Metropolitan Opera starring Enrico Caruso, Emmy Destinn and conducted by Arturo Toscanini.1 The success of La fanciulla del West confirmed Puccini’s popularity in America and influenced the Metropolitan Opera’s decision to commission and premiere Puccini’s next opera, Il trittico on December 14, 1918. The three operas of Il trittico (Il tabarro, Suor Angelica and Gianni Schicchi) were intended by the composer to be performed together in one evening.2 As early as 1904, Puccini began planning a collection of one-act operas, each reflecting a part of Dante’s Divine Comedy. Eventually, only Gianni Schicchi was based on the poem, though some scholars believe the three operas of Il trittico correspond to the three “realms” of hell, purgatory, and paradise found in Dante’s Divine Comedy.3 Puccini attended a performance of Didier Gold’s play La houppelande at the Théâtre Marigny in 1 Conrad Wilson, Giacomo Puccini (London, UK: Phaidon Press Limited, 1997), 165. 2 Ibid., 189. 3 William Berger, Puccini Without Excuses (New York, NY: Vintage Books, 2005), 235. 3 the autumn of 1912 on a trip to France. Puccini described the play as Grand Guignol, or a type of graphic, amoral horror entertainment that was popular in Paris at the time. The genre of Grand Guignol consisted of short plays of contrasting styles to make a single evening of theater. They normally include a violent horror piece, a sentimental piece and a comedy.4 Puccini’s publisher Giulio Ricordi dissuaded Puccini from composing an operatic triptych for fear that they would be a box office disaster and the works would be performed separately, or worse, paired with operas by other composers, therefore reducing revenue.5 Since the premiere, all of Ricordi’s fears regarding the performance of the operas of Il trittico have come true. Only after Ricordi’s death in 1912 did the composer feel free to proceed with the project. The strained relationship between Puccini and his former librettist Luigi Illica delayed the project until the composer finally found a librettist willing to collaborate on a pre-existing piece.6 Ultimately, Giuseppe Adami, the librettist for La rondine, provided the libretto to Il tabarro. The collaboration between Adami and Puccini proved to be one of the smoothest partnerships of all of Puccini’s operas. Puccini began composing Il tabarro in October of 1915 and completed the opera in November 1916, a remarkably quick turnaround for a composer known for painstakingly developing his operas through many revisions. By the time he completed Il tabarro, Puccini had still not chosen subject matter for the remaining operas in the triptych. 4 Andrew Davis, Il Trittico, Turandot, and Puccini’s Late Style (Bloomington, IN: Indiana University Press, 2010), 67. 5 Wilson, Giacomo Puccini,189. 6 Julian Budden, “Il tabarro,” in Puccini and His Operas, ed. Stanley Sadie (New York, NY: St. Martin’s Press, Inc., 2000), 64-65. 4 Il tabarro (The Cloak) is the first opera of the trio and focuses on the dangerous love triangle between the old barge-owner, Michele, his young wife Giorgetta, and her lover Luigi, who works for Michele. After the death of their infant son, the marriage of Michele and Giorgetta begins to unravel alarmingly fast. Giorgetta, longing for a different, more exciting life than her monotonous life on the barge, falls for the young stevedore Luigi. Their affair is one of passion and danger, constantly avoiding the watchful eye of Michele. The lovers develop a plan to run away together after Michele has gone to sleep for the night. Giorgetta will light a match as the signal for Luigi to return to rescue her from the barge. Unfortunately, Michele does not go to sleep and decides instead to light his pipe for an evening smoke. Luigi returns only to be discovered by the enraged Michele, who